Unlike most Globalism this is something we strongly support — discarded plastic pollution is a huge problem. There are easy ways to reduce it, but they involve some higher costs.
by Anna Fleck of Statistica, May 16, 2023
Governments from around the world have agreed to draw up a global agreement by the end of 2024 to put an end to plastic pollution, with the second round of negotiations set to kick off on May 29. As the following chart shows, a majority of polled consumers believe it is important to create such rules.
Across all 34 surveyed countries, a global average of 70 percent of respondents are in support of the creation of global rules for governments to end plastic pollution. This is according to a poll of more than 23,000 adults, carried out by Ipsos in collaboration with the Plastic Free Foundation and WWF.
As our chart shows, Peru and Indonesia were the countries with the highest share of respondents showing support for the creation of regulations, each with an overwhelming 81 percent. They were followed by several primarily Latin American and European countries. Of the 34 countries polled, China (59 percent), the United States (58 percent) and Japan (48 percent) had the lowest overall share of support. In Japan’s case, this is mostly accounted for by the fact that 41 percent of the country’s respondents selected that they ‘Don’t know’ whether a treaty should create global rules, rather than strictly disagreeing.
The survey found that consumers find it important for the treaty to include the following key measures: to ban unnecessary single-use plastics and plastic that cannot be easily recycled, to introduce rules that demand manufacturers and retailers to act responsibly by reducing, re-using and recycling plastic packaging, to implement global regulations requiring all new plastic products to contain recycled plastic, and to make sure labels are applied to plastic products that show how to sort them for reuse, recycling or disposal.
There is a lot of waste in the medical area where plastic is concerned. There are disposable plastic tweezers and speculums whereas these things would have previously been cleaned through autoclaving. Heck there even used to be alcohol baths for syringe needles.
Plastic is great for small children to prevent horrible cuts and lighter plastic toys for babies are great when they’re at the mouthing stage.
A good deal of waste from drink and milk bottles is crazy especially when glass bottles can be returned, sterilised and refilled.
If plastic use is reduced then more household items will be made of wood or metal and will likely last much longer.
Japan burns its plastic waste to generate electricity and this may be something to consider for the mountains of discarded water bottles.